Stuart Theatre
700 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02130
700 Washington Street,
Boston,
MA
02130
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The McDonald’s that replaced this theatre has closed.
The Unique Theatre became the Stuart Theatre in 1927, according to the October 28 issue of Motion Picture News:
Went to the Stuart a few times in the late 50’s and very early 60’s. Always scary. The projrction was fully enclosed then and was on top of the sandwich shop. The projection angle was not straight on but a severe angle shooting right to left causing A keystone effect. I didn;t dare go to the restrooms down front by the screen. I held it all in until after the movies which were almost always a western and a war movie. They only played there for maybe 2 days and the program changed and the theatre was open 24hrs.
hhhmmmm Allyn bet we had some fun there inb the 70’s ;) I used to frequent there MANY afternoons and was NOT in my 50’s :)
In a 1918 Boston street directory, this theater is listed as the Unique Theatre, at 700 Washington St. downtown.
Reputed Mafia kingpin (according to the Meese Commission report) Mickey Zaffarano of the NYC/Times Square Pussycat had his hand in this Boston ‘Cat, as well as its sister theater the West End.
Reciting from the U.S. Department of Justice Report “Organized Crime Involvement in Pornography†(June 8, 1977), “Major pornography figure Michael Zaffarano is said to have connections with the pornography business in Boston. His brother-in-law, Anthony Carl Mascolo, received financial backing from Zaffarano in January 1976 in order to open two pornographic theaters in Boston. They are known as the Pussycat Cinema 1 and the Pussycat West End Cinema.â€
An article chronicling the history of the Pussycat chain was published today at View link
By the early 1970s when Cleara attended the Stuart, the washrooms must have been relocated to the rear. When I went there, 10 – 15 years earlier, they were located down front, on each side of the screen. Older movies were the fare, with the emphasis on cowboy/westerns, adventure, mystery, war movies, etc. My memory is that the projection booth up back was completely enclosed at that time.
This is the place at which I have discovered my homosexuality.
I have such fond memories of this place! I was a 20 year old student when I discovered this place. Some of the men there; I wonder where they are now??
Well aside from that, here is what I remember:
First of all, it was on right hand side of the building. What is tricky is the fact they subleased the front right hand corner (about 100 square feet) to a sandwich shop. So, the very corner of that building was the sandwich
shop. The theater itself, however, surrounded the sandwich shop and the
projection boot was on top of the sandwich shop.
Inside, the restrooms were not astride the screen as someone else mentioned
but in the back.
As you enter, there is a bulkhead hard on your right (that is the side of the
sandwich shop). On your left is the entrance of the mens restroom. It was down
a short flight of about four stairs.
Going past that, both the left and right bulkhead open up to the theater itself. If you proceed around to the left (which is behind the left hand
section of seats, you would see the entrance to the womens restroom.
What was frustrating was that there was no vestibule. The front entrance doors were directly exposed to the screen. Whenever someone entered or left, there would be a HUGE splash of light on the screen and the picture would be wiped out.
An the reason that you heard the projector was that the projection booth, if
you want to call it that, was not fully enclosed. It had partial wall, similar to the cubicles found in offices today.
Perhaps modern cubicle offices go the idea from the Stuart’s projection booth???
And the sound system? It had less power than the mp3 player I use while riding my bicycle (I am a 40 mile per day bicycle commuter in Portland, Oregon). You had to strain to hear the movie.
Of course, about 70 percent of the people there did not care whether the
sound or projection even worked.
I would go there on Sunday afternoons (I went to college in Worcester, so Sundays were the only times I could go there). No matter the season; Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall; the Stuart was crowded on Sunday afternoons.
Aside from myself, on some of those days, the average age would be pushing 50 to 55.
And, by the way, the admission in the early 70’s was 50 cents. And it was
older movies.
Cleara
www.clearplastic.com
Portland, Oregon
Sewer, Welder, Engraver, Light, Metal, an Fabric artist
This site has a 1973 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c7yyg4
Here is a view of the current location from Google maps:
http://tinyurl.com/6jeq4z
it had a wild mens room! lol
No, I don’t know. It was a little “indie” the entire time that I knew it until it closed and then became a “Pussycat”.
ron, your right I was thinking like .75 admission. typing something else, do you know who owned the stuart?
markedmunds- are you sure you paid $1.75 to get into the Stuart during the day in the early 1960s? Or was that the total for your entire party of friends? The day admission as of 1960 was only 25 cents; might have gone up to 35 cents by 1962 or 63. It was the cheapest of the downtown Boston theaters in that period.
The Stuart was a trip, all of the above! in the early sixties my friends and I would skip school and make the trip to Boston from Waltham and hide out in the theatre’s away from the truant officers. were my dad worked at the Embassy in Waltham going to theatres in Boston was like school for me! it was neat checking out the different houses. It was like $1.75 to get in to the Stuart! I remember you could hear the projectors running inside the booth from the seats, after we’d fend off the chicken hawks we would head for the Astor cause they opened at 11am. Ah the memories
Most of the films I saw at the Stuart were last runs of mainstream feature films. As for the predators, you could tell who they were because they were constantly changing seats. Sometimes if they saw some youth in there by himself they would all sit around him at once, like bees around honey. Those who objected to this attention could loudly stand up and move elsewhere, or even walk out. Those who did not object could leave later counting their “tip” money. Such was life at the Stuart Theatre after school in the 1950s.
Boston has lost a great many theatrical treasures; the Stuart is NOT one of them! It had no redeeming qualities in the late 1950’s, other than perhaps being the cheapest ticket in town. I only went there once when I was about 14, but it was just as described above, and worse! While I was not fighting off a middle-aged sexual predator, I saw part of the worst film I have ever seen, something called “Prehistoric Women.”
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the Stuart Theatre has an exterior photo taken in May 1941. There was a fairly small marquee with “Stuart” on the front outlined in bulbs. On the sides were 2 lines of black letters on a white background. Attraction was “I Met a Murderer” (they should have added “Inside”). Just above the marquee is a very fancy long carved stonework panel, in the center of which is a large head of a “muse” looking out at Washington St. There is a centered boxoffice just under the marquee. In the right distance, across the street, is an Albiani’s restaurant on the site of the Washington Theatre. The Report states that the Stuart is not showing MGM product; that it was built in 1905 (close); that it’s in Poor condition; and has 457 seats, all on one floor.
I remember this as the Pussycat cinema. I remember going there to catch and adult flick in ‘84. Yes, the place smelled like what a brothel probably smells like…
I never went to it as the Stuart though.
I went into the McDonalds a few years ago though. There’s a Falafel Palace (or there was a few years ago) that looks like it may have been a White Castle Burger joint years ago.
A Boston Globe article published on December 28, 1982, lists the Stuart as one of several cinemas showing Chinese-language movies in the 1960s.
This 1928 map shows at least 11 downtown Boston theatres. West is at the top of this map.
The UNIQUE THEATRE is on the east side of Washington Street, at the corner of Kneeland Street, at the far left edge of this map. In an earlier comment, I quoted from a pamphlet which said the theatre’s name changed to Stuart in 1925. Either this was inaccurate, or the mapmaker didn’t notice the change.
The Pussycat closed some time between the 2nd half of 1987 and the first half of 1988; The West End Pussycat (ex-Lancaster Th.) also closed in this same timeframe. I don’t recall that the Stuart remained closed for a very long time before being converted into a McDonald’s.
I went to the Stuart a number of times in the 1950s and 1960s. It had a flat floor and an asymmetrical middle aisle – I think that the right side of the aisle had more seats than the left. It was really sort of an old Nickleodeon, and had been constructed in an existing building. The restrooms were on either side of the screen. The admission circa 1960 was only 25 cents for 2 last-run double features. It smelled like a horse-stable inside. I don’t believe I ever saw a woman in there, although there was no “Men Only” sign out front! Young males, especially teens who were alone, were “prey” in there. The outside right wall, along Stuart St., was solid brick and had 2 double fire doors, painted red. I don’t believe that it was ever open 24 hours, like the Rialto in Scollay Square. When it was taken over and renovated into the Pussycat, I assume they got rid of the stable odors! Around 1990 it was converted into a McDonalds. All traces gone, even the right brick wall with the 2 firedoors is gone. It was orignally the Unique, then Stuart, then Pussycat. Interestingly, the only other downtown Boston theatre to be converted into a restaurant is right next door, the Globe/Center/Pagoda. (Or, I should say, converted in recent years, because the old Keith’s just north of the Paramount became the Normandie ballroom and bar in the 1930s.) along
It satarted when it was still the “Stuart”, housing many homeless and prostitute types due mainly to its cheap admission policy!
Do you mean the final days when it was still called the Stuart (showing second-run double features), or the final days as the Pussycat (showing X-rated films)?